Wedding planning - do I need to 'reserve' accommodation for guests?

[PickledLily]

Not sure where to post this but here seemed a good place to start.

DP and I are putting our wedding plans into action (date - tick, venue - tick, church - tick, guest list - needs pruning) but I'm wondering about accommodation for guests. We live in the back of beyond and are getting married in the village. Decent local accommodation is limited and the wedding is later this year so I suspect the best of it will be booked up. Now I should know the answer to this because I have been to enough weddings in my time, but my brain has gone to mush. Should I be reserving accommodation for all the guests, just close family/long distance guests or leave guests to arrange their own accommodation (giving them a list of suggestions)?

From memory, unless the wedding's at a large hotel or there's accommodation on site, I've been given a list of suggested B&Bs and left to it.

What would you do?

List and leave them to it.

Do a list and that's it, I would though encourage your close relatives to book now and if you have elderly grandparents etc I would actually do their booking so you know they will be in a suitable close location. Everybody else can fend for themselves.

I would reserve some rooms for family/close friends. Plenty of places will hold rooms for a certain period and then release them if not booked. We did this with a hotel close to our venue because we had family coming from overseas and it was a nice thing to do for then. So we held rooms and it was then up to our guests to do the actual booking if they wanted it and had until about a month before when the rooms were released. Not a huge admin task for us but meant family were provided for but could choose sonething else if they wanted! But most guests I'd just leave to fend for themselves

Oh good! That's one less thing to do then :) Thanks all!